Problem Of Evil Flashcards
Natural Evil
Evil which results from the workings of the natural world such as natural disasters and disease. God is responsible as He made the natural world
Moral evil
Evil which is caused by human action such as murder or torture. Problem as why wouldn’t God intervene?
Logical Problem
Epicurus - cannot be omnibonevolent and omnipotent . Mackie made this argument into the ‘inconsistent triad’. Gods qualities cannot exist with evil. A priori argument. Deductive.
Evidential Problem of Evil
A posteriori argument that the evidence of evil in the world makes belief in God unjustified. Inductive as evil is evidence, not that it logically disproves Gods existence.
Iris Murdock, Evidential Problem of Evil
“I cannot imagine any omnipotent sentient being sufficiently cruel to create the world we inhabit”
Epicurus on PofE
“Is He both willing and able? Then whence came evil?”
Hume on the evidential problem of evil
Empiricist. 3 main points - Animal suffering shows unnecessary cruelty. Why does nature have extremes which make survival and happiness more difficult? Why doesn’t God intervene?
Theodicy- Iranaeus (vale of soul making)
Fall was a necessary stage in the development of humans as we were made in Gods ‘image’ but we need to achieve ‘likeness’. We have the potential for good but we must achieve it by choosing to don’t do evil. Jonah and Whale. Whale eats him and spits him out, he serves god after. Evil teaches us a lesson.
John Hicks version of the Irenaean Theodicy (vale of soulmaking)
Humans not created perfect but develop in 2 stages:
1. Spiritually immature where we struggle to survive. Develop into spiritually mature beings.
2. Grow into a relationship with God.
Epistemic distance is needed as if He made himself known then we would follow him out of obedience.
Augustine
Natural predisposition to sin - from the fall. Misuse of free will caused evil. Humanity to blame as it would contradict God’s omnibenevolence. Original sin is ‘seminally present’
What is evil according to Augustine.
a ‘privation of goodness’. Therefore God is blameless for evil as he JUST created goodness. ‘evil is not a substance’ such as how blindness is malfunction of the eye.
What is Evil according to Augustine
‘all evil is either sin or a punishment for sin’
Plantinga’s free will defence
Development of Augustine’s theodicy. Possible for God and evil to exist because evil is the result of free will, and free will is the result of omnibenevolence. Evil either comes from the free will of demons or of the fall. Our lives would be value-less if not for free will.
Dostoyevsky
“if everyone must suffer, in order to buy eternal harmony with their suffering, pray tell me what have children got to do with it?” – Dostoyevsky’s character Ivan. In hypothetical situation where you must torture a child in order to save others. (Is heaven worth the suffering of others?)
Weakness of free will (Augustine and Plantinga)
- Not our fault we have original sin, therefore cruel to have punishment for it.
- Innocent children suffering natural evil destroys Augustine’s argument. Although adults deserve punishment, children do not. Augustine thinks that giving into original sin counts as a choice.
